Butter honey or silk,how to describe?

http://paper.li/Bunibroto/1309952288/2011/10/10

Padma Bhushan Jagjit Singh and Chitra Singh was only real time romantic couple who popularized difficult Ghazal singing to the pick of popularity in 1970 and 1980s.He once said that Indian film music is losing all direction. Its shelf value is only 15 days.. Truly so when his song is mesmerizing audience for 4 decades, film music is in the form Masala formulae, does not bother if it is remembered or not. Actually all form of cultural development took place on that era..1980 is the turning point of social life in India. Probably India started to lose values in all form. Corruption made entry with the entry of Bofors and money started to make Indians materialistic rather than appreciative of beauties, soothing for all 5 receptors. Country which showed fierce intellectual fight to establish local languages in education again started to drift away from native languages to foreign languages.at that time. We produced Jagjit Singh,Lata Mangeshkar,Amitabh Bachchan,Dr Sriram Lagoo,Utpal Dutt,Manna Dey who were masters in languages apart from their own profession. So their work pierced deep into the heart and will never die. Unfortunately our entire culture became two faced after that,one is local language & other face is foreign one so no face dominated. Indianness died. So longevity of songs restricted to 15 days. It is true for present as well. We are passing through an era where pre independence Maestros are leaving us.I wonder whom my daughter will idolize as she has not seen them performing live.In the era of “Dhoom” real tradition of culture is “muder”ed.”Bharatnatyam” is “rock”ed back hard. I ask myself what is the future when Jagjit is replaced by Minni and Shiela.

Jagjit and Chitra was the only husband & wife who have sung in 7 languages like  Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Sindhi and Nepali .They never thought even to go in Bollywood music.Infactwhen in the eighties India began to change anew term entered in Bollywood,which is called “Alternate” Cinema. Those few alternate Cinema pushed him into film  such as Prem Geet(1981), Arth and Saath Saath (1982), and TV serialsMirza Ghalib (1988) and Kahkashan (1991). But he was very firm in his direction. He knew he will not make career on those music which has dismal shelf value. Never persuaded and stuck to his non film albums. He had his destination very clear so today in 2011 after his demise Denzil Fernandes writes Jagjit Singh: The Maestro who Infused Soul into Ghazals in http://www.daijiworld.com

But the story of Jagjit Singh ,Amitabh Bachchan and Lata Mangeshkar shows us a very vital factor of life. All were from cultural families and parents of all identified their voice & trained early.Maestros are created by the gods who identify their talents. Jagjit’s father Amar Singh realized the potential in his son and sent him to train under a blind teacher Pandit Chhaganlal Sharma.  Later he fine tuned his talent under Ustad Jamal Khan of Sainia gharana for six years and gained knowledge in different singing styles. A legend of sold out concerts,never bothered to popularize his talent, it came running towards him. That is why he is classical. He had competition from Noor Jehan, Malika Pukhraj, Begum Akhtar, Talat Mahmood and Mehdi Hassan. But his unique voice and style of singing were smooth like honey and butter, classical without tradition of classic Maestros made him different & singled out. His down to earth simple dialect made him closure to the people sitting in front.So they called Jagjit and Chitra again & again to feel a celebrity of the next door.

They got married in 1970s.Chitra Dutta was from my city and became the first couple to popularize Gazal as husband and wife worldwide. The made 80 albums together. Straightforward writer & columnist Khuswant Singh famously said “He sings better than Mehdi Hassan and looks better than Dilip Kumar." Golden voice of Silverscreen Mr.Bachchan tweeted today “Jagjit Singh : the man with the silken voice ; smooth and endearing in all his ghazal renditions …I wonder though, who will describe the voice of the descriptor. He and legendary writer Gulzar got together to make Mirza Ghalib.Probably Ghalib felt also honored to be remembered by those two epic creators. He and Ghulam Ali were to perform together but he suddenly landed up in Lilabati hospital.Ghulam said,  “I was so tense. Irrespective of which country we belong to, our creativity binds us together,” But he had to leave us, making a generation of music empty. But god snatched his only teenage son Vivek.Both parents were devasted. He recovered after long time started singing but his wife could not recover. Her voice was killed with her son. Son died in 1990 but the shock driven mother was living with her daughter(From first marriage) but 2009 god snatched her 50 year old daughter as well. World lost famous husband wife singer today. Wife killed by destiny and husband by natural call from god. Probably god thought him to be relieved from sad personal life. But despite of living in pulic scrutiny all the time their love life were never cam under scrutiny like their unforgettable creations. I only feel for mentally demolished Chitra now. I wonder why all greats are having a pain in remote corner in their hearts. Is that a god’s conspiracy to keep creativity going?

Lakhs of singers still earn money by singing his songs only. His songs will feed many in coming centuries as well because he did not believe in 15 days shelf life. There is no shelf for keeping his songs it will in the heart of the true song lovers. They will continue to inject those to the kids of next generations.

Jagjit Singh never complained about why nation stopped after giving him 3^rd highest civilian award, Nation has to ask herself, has she paid back right what he offered to the nation?